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Relationship between psychosocial variables and school absenteeism in kindergarten children
G N Chapar1, S B Friedman, J Horwitz
1Department of Pediatrics, North Shore University Hospital, Manhasset, New York 11030.
Insights
This study found no link between psychological stress from kindergarten entry and school absence in children. Further research is needed to understand the impact of psychosocial factors on pediatric illness.
Area of Science:
- Psychoneuroimmunology
- Pediatric Health
- Child Psychology
Background:
- Psychosocial factors can influence immune responses and illness.
- Stressful events may impact infectious illness and recovery.
- The link between stress and illness in children needs further investigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine if difficulty adjusting to kindergarten entry correlates with increased school absence in children.
- To investigate the relationship between psychosocial factors and illness frequency in a pediatric sample.
Main Methods:
- A prospective study of 49 children entering kindergarten.
- Data collected over 6 months via health diaries, parent/physician/teacher interviews and ratings.
- School absence served as an index of illness.
Main Results:
- No significant relationship was found between psychosocial factors and school absence.
- The study did not demonstrate a link between stress of kindergarten entry and illness frequency.
Conclusions:
- Kindergarten entry stress did not predict school absence in this sample.
- Potential explanations include the non-deviant nature of the sample or that kindergarten entry was not perceived as stressful.
- Further research is needed to explore the psychoneuroimmunology of childhood stress and illness.
Abstract:
Experimental and clinical studies have demonstrated that psychosocial factors may influence various immune responses. Recently, the relationship between psychologically stressful events and immunomodulation in humans has been reported. Few studies, however, have demonstrated clinically significant increases in infectious illness, or delayed recovery from infectious illness among humans as a result of stressful events. This study was undertaken to determine if children who experienced the greatest difficulty adjusting to kindergarten entry, a common event which is differentially stressful, would have the highest frequency of school absence (an index of illness). A randomly selected sample of 49 children entering kindergarten for the first time, and their families (patients of a suburban pediatric practice), were studied over a 6-month period utilizing health diaries, interviews with parents, parent ratings, physicians' records and ratings, and teacher ratings of children's behavior. We were unable to demonstrate a relationship between psychosocial factors and school absence among our sample of children. A possible explanation for this finding may be the relatively nondeviant character of the subjects studied. Another possibility is that kindergarten entry was not experienced as a stressful event for the children, most of whom had attended nursery school.